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Comments (43)

You are absolutely justified in your feelings and in cutting them off from you and your children forever.

They are abusive OP. And one thing I recently learned about abusive people is that it isn't what they DO that justifies a CO, it's who they ARE.

So they will never apologize for their past abuse and they will work really hard to minimize how bad it was. Even if they aren't doing any of these same things, it's likely just because they don't have the same power to do these things. It sounds like you and DH (dear husband) have made a home and a life for you and your babies that doesn't require their "help" anymore.

This just means that they will have to find new ways to be abusive, because again, it isn't what they did in the past due to your particular circumstances, it's who they are at their core. Just because you aren't living with them doesn't mean they will stop finding ways to try to control you. They just might have to get more creative.

Cutting them off will prevent them from finding those ways. It won't resolve the past, but that's not why you are doing it. You are doing it to prevent them from continuing to abuse you, which they will. And nothing that you wrote or could write could excuse the way they treated you. Nothing.

You are absolutely justified in your feelings and in cutting them off from yo...

Posted
09/27/2017

You are absolutely justified in your feelings and in cutting them off from you and your children forever.

They are abusive OP. And one thing I recently learned about abusive people is that it isn't what they DO that justifies a CO, it's who they ARE.

So they will never apologize for their past abuse and they will work really hard to minimize how bad it was. Even if they aren't doing any of these same things, it's likely just because they don't have the same power to do these things. It sounds like you and DH have made a home and a life for you and your babies that doesn't require their "help" anymore.

This just means that they will have to find new ways to be abusive, because again, it isn't what they did in the past due to your particular circumstances, it's who they are at their core. Just because you aren't living with them doesn't mean they will stop finding ways to try to control you. They just might have to get more creative.

Cutting them off will prevent them from finding those ways. It won't resolve the past, but that's not why you are doing it. You are doing it to prevent them from continuing to abuse you, which they will. And nothing that you wrote or could write could excuse the way they treated you. Nothing.

Thank you, I had honestly never thought of it being an issue of who they are vs what they do, but you are right. That's a good way to look at it.

Thank you, I had honestly never thought of it being an issue of who they are ...

Posted
09/27/2017

Thank you, I had honestly never thought of it being an issue of who they are vs what they do, but you are right. That's a good way to look at it.

That was probably one of my big lightbulb moments when I read that.

Because I have spent countless hours picking over all these little incidents from my own life and wondering, is that enough? Is it enough to convince other people or to explain to them why it was so awful?

The secret is-it doesn't have to be. There doesn't have to be one big thing and the absence of those "big things" doesn't mean it wasn't abusive. So my ex never punched me, but he was abusive in so many other ways that I described living with him as torture.

I don't need to give the millions of examples why. They sound silly in retrospect. They make me sound silly in retrospect. He put the kids' winter coats in storage? He was just trying to be helpful! (Except he didn't tell me. Except they still needed them and I didn't know where they were. Except....except....except.....)

It doesn't matter that he did something and it ended up making my life hell. It's that he actively looked for something to make my life hell because that was his motivation for everything. And no matter how many times I caught it, or prevented him from doing worse, or it didn't really have the effect he intended, it didn't matter. I shouldn't have to live with someone whose number one goal was to make my life hell, no matter how he actually managed that goal.

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